BOOK CLUB | SUNDAY, APRIL 26 | 11 AM–1 PM | FREE
Illiterati: Gen X Book Club
The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe
Illiterati: Gen X Book Club will meet at FUSION on Sunday, April 26, from 11 AM–1 PM.
Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what past generations can teach us about living through times of upheaval—with deep insights into the roles that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have to play—now with a new preface by Neil Howe. This month’s Illiterati: Gen X Book Club will be on The Fourth Turning (National Bestseller) by William Strauss and Neil Howe.
“One of the best efforts to give us an integrated vision of where we are going.”—The Wall Street Journal
First comes a High, a period of confident expansion. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion. Then comes an Unraveling, in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis—the Fourth Turning—when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history.
William Strauss and Neil Howe will change the way you see the world—and your place in it. With blazing originality, The Fourth Turning illuminates the past, explains the present, and reimagines the future. Most remarkably, it offers an utterly persuasive prophecy about how America’s past will predict what comes next.
Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history. The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four twenty-year eras—or “turnings”—that comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth. Illustrating this cycle through a brilliant analysis of the post–World War II period, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for this rendezvous with destiny.
Illiterati: Gen X Book Club is a media-positive book group. Audiobookers and Podcasters are welcome too. Prepare yourself for lively, non-disrespectful discussion. BYO snacks and drinks!
This book club is FREE and open to the public!
All are welcome. The club will be discussing books related to Generation X. You're welcome to BYO snacks and drinks. Look in the photos section on Meetup.com for the current reading list. If you have reading suggestions please send them to genxbookclub@gmail.com, and keep in mind:
Authors should be born between 1960 and 1980. Outliers will want good reasons to be included. Any books over 400 pages may be discussed over multiple months.
Folks are welcome to attend even if they haven't finished the book, and audio versions are fair game.
Gen X Book Club is looking for discussion above agreement, but being mean will not be tolerated. Disagreement can be lovely as long as it remains respectful.
ABOUT ILLITERATI: GEN X BOOK CLUB
“Things are weird. The adults are all gone. We've been left to fend for ourselves by the light of an empty fridge.
Gen X was made for this. We got ourselves to the mall food court, looking for each other without appearing to care. Let's read Gen X literature. Let's discuss it as if it's real. As our ultimate rebellious act in a dying world we'll make it so.
Now that we've found a couple of interested slackers we'll crack open Eggers, Wurtzel, Safran Foer. Hewlett & Martin. If all goes well and follows in reasonable order we'll start with early Gen X authors and move to the later. Maybe rinse occasionally with something hopeish from outside the timeline, like Allie Brosh.
But when does it all go well and follow in reasonable order?”